The platform exclusive game that’s been in development for over 5 years is finally going to be available. No, not Gran Turismo 5 – that one’s still caught in purgatory. We’re taking about 360 exclusive psychological thriller/horror Alan Wake from Max Payne developers Remedy. The Finnish developer’s game – announced all the way back at E3 2005 – is finally finished.

Let’s take a look at the available reviews and see if it’s a shining example of the genre, or if deserves to be left alone…in the dark.

So..pretty good scores – but not unanimously so. I have a tendency to agree with Eurogamer reviews – but they do tend to get it quite wrong when it comes to survival horrors. They gave the rather excellent Dead Space a 7, the same score they gave to the rather abysmal Alone on the Dark. Of course, scores aren’t the gist of reviews – they’re just arbitrary numbers assigned to the end of reviews so people take you seriously.

Alan Wake will be available locally on May 14thÂ – who of you will be getting it?

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In this article

I'm old, grumpy and more than just a little cynical. One day, I found myself in possession of a NES, and a copy of Super Mario Bros 3. It was that game that made me realise that games were more than just toys to idly while away time - they were capable of being masterpieces.
I'm here now, looking for more of those masterpieces.
I am also the emperor of the backend

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eltonriley

Metacritic avg = currently 83%. Meh. Was going to dust off my 360 for this one, but I think I’ll wait for more reviews.

http://www.lazygamer.net/members/geoff/ Geoffrey Tim

there’s something quite seriously wrong with this industry if scores of 80+ are considered “meh”.

Bobby Kotick does a facepalm

To be honest Geoff *Bobby climbs on his soapbox* I blame the failure that is maths literacy at our schools and just general maths ignorance around the world. Remember when we had the discussion about how anything above 50% is by definition “above average” and anything scoring 80% should be flippin’ button mashing good (90% should be melt your eyeballs) or that no game should actually be able to score 100% because that level of perfection is unobtainable…? It’s Maths fail, bru. Utter maths fail!

Bobby Kotick gets confused easily

Although, I think game reviewers are partly to blame for this phenomenon as well. I always go back to the simple 5 star movie reviews. It’s generally understood that a 2.5 (and even 3-star) movie is typically an average affair, whereas in gaming “average” has mutated from 50% into a score of 70% (7/10). I just don’t get it. It really baffles my mind. :wassat:

Aequitas

agreed. I’ll be picking it up.

http://games.news24.com Niel

A lot of people are taking the “flawed genius” route on this one.

Personally, the nods to Twin Peaks are very exciting and I’ll be picking it up for the stories and characters, if nothing else.

Pre-ordered it at BT games.. but kinda considering leaving it till next month… i guess Alan can sleep a bit longer

Helios

Game is not bad. 4 hours into it and the graphics is not great up close, but totally worth the free price to play.

Voice over is NAF. :pirate:

mitas

free price to play – could elaborate :silly:

http://www.gamerlobby.net koldFU5iON

You’ve probably downloaded a pre-release(or beta) version which didn’t have the full polish, sorry bud but you fail.

http://www.lazygamer.net/members/nick/ Nick de Bruyne

Nothing surprises me more than these okes who just casually come in here and give their 4-hour playthrough review of a pirated downloaded early code version of the game.

Sewende Laan

Helios = Fail! I hope you die from squirrel-aids you filthy pirate! :pirate:

fred

Did you do the voice over?

Sewende Laan

I’ll wait for more reviews to come in, and what folks think about the game once they really play it. I got burnt with that crap on a disk Modern Warfare 2 because I believed the hype and all the >>positive and glowing<< reviews. :getlost:

Sewende Laan

Anyway… reading the Eurogamer review something tells me Alan Wake would have been spectacular had it remained a PS3 exclusive. I think Remedy shot itself in the foot there, by having to scale down the game for the crapbox.

Potty391

You do know it was never scheduled to be released on PS3 right? Let alone be an exclusive. It’s for Xbox 360 and PC only, the PS3 has never been mentioned.

Sewende Laan

Did I say PS3? I meant PC (I blame the beer I’ve been consuming). It was originally meant to showcase DirectX10. Regardless, they still shot themselves in the foot, by being forced to scale down for the crapbox (which incidentally also got scaled down when the HD-DVD lost the format war).

ItWasLeaked

Sorry dudes but Helios has the full game. Retail was leaked yesterday. (gamestop I believe)

Great game so far, amazing story and visuals.

Pity it is not on PS3, uncompressed Sound and Video would have made it a 10/10.

Remedy has said that they will release DLC to fix some of the model and graphics issues. Great incentive for those that want an even better looking game to rather buy it.

On PC it would have been game of the year… maybe 😆

Installing the game to hard disk drive helps with the load times on 360.

http://www.lazygamer.net/members/nick/ Nick de Bruyne

Helios said : “but totally worth the free price to play.” so I don’t think he got it early.

How on earth could uncompressed sound and visuals elevate a game to a 10/10?

Leaky

Leaked=you can get retail from internet. AKA download it.

:0

FF on 360 vs ff o ps3…

Uncompressed = better :alien:

Bobby Kotick destroys evil by candle light

I saw a vid of the opening 10 minutes of the game on Eurogamer last night, and it does look very interesting (although the crummy voice over and cheesy B-grade dialogue would drive me insane).

Anyway, I understand why there’s so much hate for the game, I call it the “Fable-Spore effect”. Due to the hardware limitation of the xbox360, there’s no question that the game had been scaled down (not only in terms of what should have been DirectX10 visuals, but also in terms of the sheer scale of the game environment). It’s not entirely the game that was hyped in 2005. Anyone remember that cool video with that tornado ripping through the town? It’s a real pity because even though the xbox360 kicked it in the nuts, it still looks stunning (although the box is definitely showing its age now – I checked out the Halo Reach demo the other night, and yeah, the visuals on the box doesn’t have that “wow factor” anymore…). I think folks are just disappointed that after 5 years of hype, this is all we get, a short 10 hour game that can easily be finished over a weekend). I suppose if you compare that to something like Red Dead which hopefully will be like GTA4 in terms of game length and extras, Alan Wake just doesn’t seem economical.

I’ll probably eventually rent it, borrow it from a friend or pick it up when I find it in the bargain bin.

WitWolfyZA

I agree with you dude. That might explain why it took 5 years to make this game. seeing that they had to scrap the “DX10 engine” and rebuild the console engine from scratch ,and remove a whole bunch of features … one being free roaming. this game seems like a Alone in the Dark clone. With better graphics, and maybe more solid controls.

This game could’ve blown everyone away. But maybe we just hyped ourselves up again… As per usual!

WitWolfyZA

Thats just plain stupid. FF13 didnt get a better over all score on PS3 just for having better graphics. your argument is just plain stupid.